Thursday, October 5, 2017

Have you heard of the alphabet zoo?

The reality of being a second child is that you're inadvertently going to spend the majority of your time using hand me downs, which isn't necessarily a bad thing {especially in this house} because you automatically inherit all your sisters cool toys. And if your house is anything like ours then there's a lot of toys to inherit. To be honest I've just started culling the majority of bub's old toys, but I've kept a few of the baby ones for baby girl, but it's always nice to have toys that are all your own.

Thankfully this little old blog sporadically provides me with opportunities to review cool new toys {when I choose to accept the offers in my inbox} and recently we were sent the Leapfrog Spin & Sing Alphabet Zoo toy, so baby girl has finally got her first real toy {that's not a rattle or a teether} which is all her very own. Of course that didn't stop her big sister from trying to steal it before it even came out of the box {sisters are so much fun}.

The Spin & Sing Alphabet Zoo is an interactive multi sensory toy for babies from 6 months + that makes learning the alphabet fun. Babies can bat the letter wheel in the centre to make it spin which lights up the wheel {on the right}, spins the balls {on the left} and then tells them the animal or letter that it stops on. The 3 buttons at the front change the learning modes between letters, animals or music.

When we first got it she couldn't do much with it so she would sit in her bumbo and watch her sister spin it around for her. But then her sister decided she liked it a lot so she stole it for a while and hid it in her room {and told me she didn't know where it was, even though I saw her take it}. I decided to capitalise on her interest so I left it in her room for a few days and we used it during story time. As we read animal books she would find the same animals on the spinning wheel and we'd talk about the noises they make and the letter they start with. It was a great way to extend reading time with her while her sister was too young to really use it. But once baby girl started getting better at tummy time she reclaimed it and it's been her favourite floor time toy since.

Now she can hold herself up a lot more and roll around all over her mat she's getting really good at moving over to it and whacking it until it spins. Her eyes light up as soon as the lights flash and it makes noise. Obviously at 5 months old she couldn't care less about the learning aspects in regards to the alphabet and animal information, but it's still been great to encourage her to reach, grasp and push. It's teaching her cause and effect as she knows when she hits it, it lights up and makes noise. It's also been a great motivator for tummy time and rolling.

The toy is guided for 6mths to 3yrs but I've found baby girl showed interest from 4 months watching her sister spinning it and could play with it by 5 months. Obviously it'll be easier for her to do once she can sit by herself and as she grows. Also bub is 4 so technically older than the guided age, but she gravitated towards it straight away thinking it was for her, not her baby sister. While I probably wouldn't buy it as a present for a 4yr old, it certainly won't lose it's appeal as your child turns 4. It's actually been really cute watching them playing with it together and it's probably the only toy we own at the moment that they both play with at the same time, even though they both love it for different reasons.

Toni x

Disclosure - Baby girl was gifted a Leapfrog Spin & Sing Alphabet Zoo for the purpose of review. All opinions expressed within this post are based on our experience using the toy. I did not receive payment for this review.